No Sanctuary Box Set: The No Sanctuary Omnibus - Books 1-6

by Mike Kraus

  “I… okay, yeah. So I hang a right here?”

  “Yep.” Jackson unbuckled his seatbelt and turned around, throwing the tracking device onto the back seat next to Linda. He dug through his bag next, pulling out spare empty magazines and lining them up on the floor in front of his seat. “I’ll let you know when we get close. We need to pull over and get everything in order before we go in.”

  “How are we going in, exactly?”

  “Good question. We don’t have any satellite or drone reconnaissance of the area so we’ll be going in relatively blind. It’s not ideal but if he’s there then we need to try to get to him. Linda’s got more experience with this sort of thing so as long as she’s up to it, she’s going to take point and tell us what to do.”

  “She can certainly improvise well. Do you think she’ll be up for it, even if you give her one of those shots again?”

  “A speedball? Yeah. That’ll get her going again for a while. It’s hell on her system and terrible for her, though.”

  “You’re not my mother, Jackson.” A voice from the backseat made both Frank and Jackson turn and look at Linda.

  “How you feeling?” Jackson shifted in his seat to get a better look at her as she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position.

  “Like somebody spent hours punching me repeatedly.”

  “How’re the ribs?”

  “About the same. Hurts like hell every time I take a breath. How close are we? Did you find the location yet?”

  Jackson folded the map over on itself and passed it back to Linda as he pointed at the red circle. “The tracker’s there.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “He had us drive around long enough to take double the number of signal strength and directional readings. I’m pretty sure he’s sure.” Frank answered.

  “Good man.” Linda nodded as she examined the map. “We’re almost there, I take it?”

  “Ten minutes out, probably. We’re going to stop soon and get everything in order.” Jackson took the map back and laid it out on his lap again.

  “Good, good. What’s the strategy?”

  Jackson and Frank exchanged a glance before the soldier turned back around. “I figured you’d want to take lead on that. You’ve got more experience in that sort of thing than I do, plus if I try to take point on this you’ll probably end up killing me.”

  Linda didn’t respond to the joke as she stared out through the windshield. “Well, let’s see. Without recon we’re going to be going in blind.”

  “Jackson already went through that.” Frank replied. “He said we’d probably be improvising the whole way through.”

  “Absolutely we will. He’s bound to have guards around the property he’s on, and we don’t know how many buildings might be there or which one he’s in. We should ambush one of the guard patrols and extract that information from them before we go in any further. The key is going to be doing it without alerting him that we’re there. If we do, then he could escape again.”

  “Ambushing a guard patrol? What is this, some kind of spy movie?” Frank snorted in amusement as Linda began to stretch her arms and legs, groaning at the myriad of pains that made themselves known with each and every movement.

  “We need info before we move in on Omar,” Jackson replied, “otherwise we’ll be sitting ducks.”

  “It sounds crazy.”

  “Frank, we’re driving a military truck north of Washington in search of a foreign terrorist after we destroyed a mortar attack on a city, defused a nuclear bomb and survived numerous attacks. We’re a little beyond crazy at this point.” Linda couldn’t help but crack a slight smile at how absurd it all sounded when it was jumbled up together.

  “Fair point.” He nodded and sighed. “Just tell me what to do.”

  ***

  Half a mile from the location on the map, tucked behind a small shed near the edge of the road, Frank, Jackson and Linda stood around the back of the truck. They spoke in low, conspiratorial tones as they pushed bullets into magazines, checked and re-checked their weapons and carefully organized their gear in their vests and backpacks. Linda took the small black pouch containing the two remaining needles and tucked it into her pocket, promising Jackson that she would only use it when absolutely necessary. Her pain was still severe, but the brief rest she took in the back of the truck left her feeling less groggy and more alert and energized.

  “The layout of all of this area seems to be the same. Fields with small patches of woods here and there.” Linda looked around, confirming what she had seen during the last few minutes of their drive. “So I say we go in on foot from here, sticking to the opposite side of the road and keeping to the low points of the fields and in the trees as much as possible. As soon as we spot the first guard patrol we’ll lie low until we find a good way to take them down, then I’ll get as much information from them as possible.”

  Jackson tightened the straps on his backpack and checked that the safety on his rifle was on. “You lead and we’ll follow, Rollins.”

  “Frank, I want you sticking to me like white on rice. Where I go, you go. Walk in my footsteps, breathe when I do and don’t shoot at anything unless I tell you to. Jackson, you provide rearguard. Hang a few meters behind us and make sure we don’t get surprised by anything.”

  Frank and Jackson both nodded and Linda picked up her rifle. Her face was rigid and she was still clearly in pain, though Frank could see a sparkle of joy in her eyes for the first time in a while. She flashed them both a grin and turned from the truck, heading toward the road.

  “All right, boys. Let’s go bag ourselves a terrorist.”

  ***

  “Perimeter guards just checked in, sir. They’ve not spotted anything abnormal.”

  “I want updates every ten minutes starting now.” Farhad Omar sat on the edge of a folding chair in front of a table, his legs bouncing nervously. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Sir, with all due respect—”

  “I suggest you choose your next words very carefully.”

  “Sir, I just… how would anyone know where we are? We weren’t followed and I don’t think even she could—”

  “Assumptions are what get people killed.” Omar’s voice is steady, but there’s an unmistakable streak of anger building at the edges. “Assumptions kill us and wreck our plans and destroy years of ceaseless work. We will not assume. Not about her. Have them check in every ten minutes. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll let them know now.” Omar’s eyes track the man as he walks away, talking into his two-way radio in a low voice. In the house, Omar studies a map of the city to the south as though the bird’s-eye view will give him some insight into how his rapidly depleting forces can somehow take it. Reports from those attacking the city have grown sporadic and the latest ones are not on the positive side. The man who escaped—who his men somehow allowed to escape—is more than likely responsible for warning the city about the flanking attacks. The attacks that, if they had succeeded, would have meant the final stage in his plan would have been carried out.

  So many cities and so many bombs but with no way to activate them, all he could do is sit in frustration and wish that everything wasn’t collapsing around him.

  Chapter 13

  A bath. A warm bath. With bubbles, some scented candles, music and a glass of red wine, with the bottle sitting nearby. And maybe someone rubbing her feet. More than anything else in the world, Linda just wanted a bath. She had forgotten the last time that she had a proper shower under steaming hot water with something better than a bar of plain, unscented soap. Relaxing in a warm bath and letting her aching muscles relax while the water soothed them sounded like the most divine experience in the world.

  “Linda.” The whisper from just to her right side dissolved the daydream and returned her to reality. The cold, stiff, bruised, constantly painful reality that she was living in was in stark contrast to what she had been imagining.

  “What is it?”
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  “Up ahead on the left. You see that guy standing out there?”

  Linda hadn’t been paying much attention during their half-mile walk, but at the first mention that someone else was nearby she instantly snapped into a focused, analytical state. “Good eye,” she whispered to Frank and held up a fist, signaling for both him and Jackson to stop.

  The man Frank had spotted was walking slowly on the inside of the barbed-wire fence bordering the property to the left. He wore a camouflage jacket and blue jeans along with a baseball cap. A black rifle was balanced in his hands as he walked along, slowly meandering alongside the fence, looking very much like he had no particular destination or goal in mind.

  “Well, well, well. Doesn’t he look out of place.” Linda whispered to Frank and Jackson as they both knelt down next to her and watched the man.

  “Could just be someone who lives out here,” Jackson replied, “but I wouldn’t expect most folks to be dressed and armed like that just to take a stroll around their property.”

  “Especially not when there’s more than one.” Linda pointed out beyond the first man to another pair of figures emerging from the trees. They were dressed in dark-colored clothing, like the first one, and they both carried what looked like the exact same weapons, too. The pair stopped in front of the man and one of them pulled a radio off of his belt and held it up to his face for a moment while looking around before finally replacing it. The three stood there for a few more minutes before breaking off again, the lone man turning to retrace his steps while the pair vanished back into the woods.

  “Definitely not someone who lives here. Looks like you two found the correct place, all right.”

  “Is it just me,” Frank asked, “or is it odd that he’s by himself? Those other two were together, so why’s he alone?”

  “It looks like he might be assigned to a small patrol area. They may have a limited number of people and if they’re on high alert they could be spread too thin.”

  “Here,” Linda slipped out of her backpack and dropped it on the ground, “watch this. I’m going to take him down.”

  “No.” Jackson put a firm hand on her shoulder and she winced. “You are not in good enough shape to do this. I’ll grab him and bring him across the road, up there to that little barn. You two wait for me there.” The lieutenant pulled off his own backpack and handed his rifle to Frank before drawing and checking the ammo in his pistol.

  “Good idea. Come on, Linda.” Frank nudged her and she picked up her pack again as she sighed at Jackson.

  “Just don’t make any noise, okay?”

  “I know you think I’m just a grunt, Rollins, but give me a break here.” Jackson smiled. He looked across the road, watching the guard carefully. When there was a thick row of trees—including a pair of pines—in between the guard’s sightline and the road, Jackson charged out at full speed, boots pounding on pavement as he crossed over and slunk into the ditch on the other side. He slowed his pace then, taking each step carefully and deliberately as he listened and watched for the guard through the branches.

  The telltale sound of slow, methodical footsteps through grass and dead leaves grew louder on the other side of the trees, and Jackson could just barely make out the shape of the man through the branches as he walked along. While Jackson’s OCP uniform didn’t blend in perfectly with the surrounding lack of vegetation, the pair of pine trees nearby provided enough cover that he was invisible to the guard.

  When the crunch of leaves grew the loudest, Jackson sprung from his crouched position and pushed through the pine branches. There was the faintest cry of surprise from the guard before Jackson bowled him over, knocking his rifle away, planting his left hand over the guard’s mouth and pressing the barrel of his pistol up against the guard’s temple.

  “Listen to me very carefully. If you make a sound, you die. If you try to get away, you die. If you answer our questions, you won’t die. Understand me?” Jackson had expected the guard to be old and grizzled, a hardened veteran with complete loyalty to Omar who would need to be subdued before he could be taken back across the road. What he saw instead was a young man no older than eighteen or twenty, his face a mask of pure fear and his whole body trembling. The young man nodded frightfully and his body relaxed as he submitted to Jackson’s commands.

  Not taking any chances, Jackson roughly pulled the man up and shoved him back through the trees. Constant, unceasing movement was necessary to keep the man off guard, confused and distracted so that he didn’t try anything. Linda and Frank watched from the ditch on the side of the road as Jackson pushed the man forward, causing him to trip and fall into Frank’s waiting arms where he pinned the guard down. Linda crouched next to him, her pistol pressed up against his temple. His gaze flashed between her and Frank until he finally realized who she was and he gasped and his eyes widened.

  “You… you’re….”

  “Shey’taan. Yes. I am. And you are going to answer every single question I ask of you, or else I’m going to—” She growled at him and Jackson put a hand on her shoulder, interrupting her as he knelt down in the ditch.

  “Rollins. Take it easy. He’s just a kid.”

  “He’s not just—”

  “Rollins.” Jackson snapped at her and he pointed at the guard. “Look at his face.”

  Linda looked down at the young man, studying his expression for a long moment. Instead of the battle-hardened face of someone like Omar, she saw the panicked and terrified face of someone who had gotten caught up in something far larger than he had ever anticipated. Someone who, while certainly responsible for his decisions that led him to be working for a mass murderer, was not her direct enemy. His whole body shook under her gaze and she realized that threats would not be necessary.

  “Are you going to answer my questions?” She asked him again, more forcefully than she intended. He nodded furiously, his short-cropped hair rubbing against the barrel of the pistol still pressed up next to his head.

  “Good.” She shifted positions, planting a knee on his chest to keep him still. She pulled the gun away from his head and aimed it down at his neck to help remind him who was in charge. “Is Omar in there?”

  Another frantic nod.

  “Where at?”

  “Big house. Quarter of a m—mile back or so. Next to a r—red and white barn.”

  “How many guards are patrolling?”

  “A d—dozen.”

  “Including you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many are solo, like yourself?”

  “Most of them. Th—there aren’t enough people to patrol everything properly.”

  “Is there another fallback location he might try to retreat to?”

  “I… I don’t know. I’m just a—”

  “What types of weapons does he have on hand? Any RPGs or mounted LMGs?”

  “A few RPGs in storage, yes. A pair of surface to air launchers, I think.”

  “Good. Last question. And this one’s going to be the difference between a long stay in a cell and a bullet in your brain. You want the bullet in your brain?”

  A frantic, panicked shaking of his head came next.

  “What’s the most direct route to the house where he’s located? How do we avoid the patrols and get there undetected?”

  “I don’t know the routes, I—I’m sorry. Please don’t kill me. Please!” Tears formed in the man’s eyes and Linda rolled her own in response. “Jackson, tie him up and gag him. Leave him here. He’ll be hidden from anyone who goes by, at least long enough for us to take care of our business.”

  Jackson nodded and dug through his bag as he traded places with Linda to guard the man. Linda whispered to Frank as she moved away from them. “You think he was telling the truth?”

  “I think he probably pissed himself at the sight of you. What’s that shay-ten thing he called you?”

  “Shey’taan. Arabic for Satan. Omar’s called me that for years.” She snorted and grinned. “I can’t say that I mind it t
oo much, all things considered. Especially now that we’re about to catch up with him.”

  “Don’t get cocky, okay? We’ve still got a lot more ground to cover. Plus a dozen guards on patrol, and who knows how many more at the house with him.”

  “Mhm.” Linda nodded slowly. “I think I might have an idea for that. I’ll need to talk with Jackson first, though.”

  “Talk to me about what?” Jackson slunk over to Linda and Frank, then glanced back at the man who was thoroughly bound and had a thick gag shoved into his mouth with tape wrapped around his ears and face, leaving just a pair of holes for him to breathe through his nose.

  “You have C4 with you, right?”

  “Two blocks with a pair of detonators.”

  “What’s the range on them?”

  “Well, they’re remote detonators so… whatever you want, within reason. Why?”

  “Eleven more guards is going to be a lot to deal with. We can try sneaking past them, but I think we could do something a little more flashy and have a better chance at success.”

  “Rollins…” Jackson’s voice was full of trepidation. “What are you thinking about?”

  Linda smiled, all of her pain and discomfort temporarily forgotten as her mind churned with the final details to the plan she was thinking up. The hardest part of it, she realized, would be convincing Jackson that it could work.

  Chapter 14

  “Let’s do it.”

  “Look, just hear me—wait, what?”

  “Let’s do it.” Jackson repeated his statement as he shifted positions on his knees, all three of them still crouched in the ditch on the opposite side of the road from the property on which Omar was hiding.

  “I… okay, I didn’t expect that.” Linda shook her head, wondering if she had suffered some sort of brain injury that was making her hallucinate Jackson’s agreement with her admittedly borderline insane plan.

  Jackson slunk back down the ditch and grabbed the legs of the guard they had captured and pulled him toward Linda and Frank. The guard’s eyes went wide with fear and he started shaking his head, fully expecting that his captors had changed their mind about letting him live. Instead, though, Jackson removed the man’s gag and roughly pulled him into a sitting position.